A Preferential Option for Youth?

(obviously playing with the "preferential option for the poor" language)

A Preferential Option for Youth: John Coleman, SJ

... Hoge ended his book with a strong plea for a "preferential option for young adult Catholics." For such an option to be real and not just empty rhetoric, it needs to be translated into diocesan and parish budgets, ministerial personnel, imaginative programs. Resources and energies should be directed toward helping young adult Catholics feel wanted, welcomed and actively involved.

Being welcoming to young adults must mean more than hospitality at the parish level (they are not there, anyway!) but entail a vigorous outreach beyond the parish.. In the Hoge sample, young adult Catholics complained of the absence of programs and activities for single young adults.. Perhaps any given parish may lack resources for imaginative outreach programs, but a consortium of neighboring parishes or a diocese could pay for and sponsor them.

I am deeply disturbed by what seems the sheer complacency I see around me in dioceses on this issue.

More here.